[UAH] MORSI'S OUSTER SPELLS TROUBLE FOR REGION'S OTHER ISLAMIST MOVEMENTS

The ouster a week ago of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood government represents a significant setback for the Islamist movements that have proved the biggest beneficiaries so far of the Arab Spring revolts. From Tunisia to war-torn Syria, anti-Islamist activists have begun expressing unhappiness with the religious parties empowered by freedoms the turmoil unleashed. That the backlash has crescendo in Egypt - the Arab world’s political and cultural trendsetter and the birthplace of the Muslim Brotherhood 80 years ago - is likely to resonate far beyond, perhaps most forcefully in Syria. The specter of the Arab world’s most populous nation rising up in unprecedented numbers against an Islamist leader has likely tainted the Brotherhood’s long effort to present itself as a viable alternative to the region’s mostly repressive regimes, in ways it will find hard to redress. In the Gaza Strip, for one, a source close to the Islamist Hamas government said of Morsi’s downfall that Hamas officials were, “in complete and utter shock.” Those in the Gaza Strip not affiliated with Hamas, an offspring of the Muslim Brotherhood, have expressed optimism that events in Egypt would encourage a similar overthrow of Gaza’s repressive Hamas government. (Ynet/Washington Post)